Pizza and Perceptions

That's the patron saint of pizza in my blip today. His portrait hangs in Bellingham's best pizza place, La Fiamma Wood Fire Pizza, which just happens to be on the same short block downtown as Boundary Bay Brewery and Bistro, another of our favorite places.

I met my friends L and MM at La Fiamma for the lunch special ($8.75/5.6 GBP/ 6.50 Euro, available from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.) It includes an 8 inch (20 cm) "personal pizza" from the extensive choices and what the menu lists as "a small green salad." (Their idea of small and mine are quite different, as my salad looked like this -- that's a bowl, not a plate, so there is more salad than meets the eye).

Today I chose the Sofia pizza, my favorite -- tomato sauce, prosciutto, red onion, fresh rosemary, and mozzarella. I saved one piece for P, mainly because I was too full to eat it after all that salad.

It was great to get caught up with my friends, but our time together was briefer than usual, because I had an appointment at 1:00 pm for a cataract evaluation. I've been uncomfortable driving at night recently, bothered by the glare from headlights and reflections on wet pavement. At my recent annual eye exam, I mentioned this to my eye doctor, and he did some preliminary testing to see if the cataracts he had noticed at one of my earlier exams had suddenly become worse.

They had, so he referred me to Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute, which specializes in treatment for cataracts and other eye problems. I had a thorough evaluation there today, and am scheduled to have the cloudy lens (the cataract) in my right eye replaced with an artificial lens on Dec. 13.

The procedure takes only 15 minutes, is done under local anesthesia, and has a very high rate of success. The waiting area is lovely, more like a nice hotel than a medical facility (you see just a portion of it here), and everyone on the staff is friendly and informative.

So what am I worried about?

Not being able to wear any eye makeup for a week. Unless I'm really sick, I do what P sweetly calls "gilding the lily" every morning. I don't wear a lot of makeup, just enough to look as if I'm awake and in reasonable health.

It will be interesting to see if anyone notices the difference from Dec. 12 to 20. I won't be doing any self-portraits here, that's for sure!